Book Rec of the Day 1/23/2007

YOU’VE NEVER READ ANNE TYLER?

Tyler is the Vermeer of contemporary fiction, painting scenes of domestic life with loving detail and stunning clarity. She has peers (Sue Miller leaps to mind), but she has no equal. This may be the best novel of her career. Pauline and Michael’s marriage is utterly ordinary—the three children, the suburban life, the everyday squabbles—but Tyler’s brilliant writing makes it extraordinary. If you haven’t read Tyler before, start here. If you are a fan but haven’t read The Amateur Marriage yet, you are in for a treat.

THE AMATEUR MARRIAGE, by Anne Tyler (Ballantine, 2004)